News that authorities were searching a farm near the scene of Jacob Wetterling’s abduction has generated intense interest among the media and the public. Today’s Question: Why do we find the Jacob Wetterling story so compelling?

Related Questions

A man mentioned on another web article..that mayor of St. Joseph is Al Rassier. Al Rassier is 54. Same age as ??cousin/relative Dan Rassier. Al has son named Josh. Josh age listed as 32. Jacob would have been 32.

gosh..? I pray Jacob is found alive. Interesting though.

Keith

In the era of 24/7 news, a story like this gives the media something with an emotional appeal that can be endlessly speculated about without the risk needing to supply costly in-dept reporting. It is cost effective filler, and thus perfect grist for the mill.

j

WE don’t, the TV does.

lois

The story of Jacob Wetterling was heart breaking at the time and still is. He was with friends (strength in numbers), it wasn’t dark, and the town is small and crime is not as common as in larger communities.

They did everything right as far as an immediate search. It has always been compelling to those of us that lived through it.

I hope this brings some explanation for the family. Any parent can tell you an abduction is one of the worst things to happen, not knowing what happened to him is the absolute worse.

I hope for the best for the family.

Lawrence

This is a great question. Several children throughout the year go missing in the United States, and many more children are victims of sexual abuse. Add these children to the number of children that need adoptive homes (many of them ages 10 and up) and suddenly you realize there are a lot of children that could use the same amount of attention as Jacob Wetterling. But for some reason, Jacob Wetterling annually captivates our attention.

Khatti

Part of the allure of the Wetterling affair is that it is unsolved. Unsolved crimes tend to grab a place in our imaginations–think Jack the Ripper.

The Wetterling abduction also came along at a time when our collective need for obsession turned to children and childrearing. Children became the flavor-of-the-month in around 1989–and have stayed the flavor-of-the-month ever since. Why children have become–and have stayed–the flavor-of-the-month for twenty years might be just as interesting a question for us to ponder as the Wetterling affair.

Linda

My three children were the same age group that Jacob was and we lived in a rural area. My heart went out to Mr. and Mrs. Wetterling. I think about Jacob all the time and his family missing him.

Chris

There are 3 reasons Jacob is still on my mind. The first is at the time of Jacob’s abduction his story was everywhere you looked. Anyone with a heart could not help but hope that he would be found alive since then Jacob and his family has stayed in our hearts like unfinished sentence, all of us hoping he would be found. My second reason is I had a tragedy that was in the news at the same time so these two events are connected for me. Finally since Jacob went missing I have had children of my own and any person who has lost sight of their child for just a second has a brief notion of the horror the Wetterling’s face every day. The terror, loss, and hurt must be unbearable at times and the bravery they have shown is a blessing to every missing person and their families.

Kelly

I believe we find it compelling because we have all lived with some fear of the unknown masked man that forever removed a little boy from our lives. I am from St. Cloud and was just a year younger than Jacob when he was taken. After he was taken, new rules effecting our freedom to roam were put in place, we sang songs about Jacob in choir class, and we gathered with other children to develop theories that provide us potential answers on the mystery of the situation. We want to see resolution both for the Wetterling friends & family, and also ourselves for the story that changed our lives. My parents still have the missing child poster hanging on the fridge– we never forget him.

It’s compelling because it was a tragedy that lacked closure. There’s no off-switch for hope. The Wetterling’s didn’t get to raise their son, nor did they bury him. As long as his story remains an open-ended question, we’ll be interested.

Matt

I have never understood the media’s fascination with this story. Why is this one case so important? Small-town innocence lost? The fact that this literally could happen today and children can’t really prepare for it? To me, it was just a sad tale but not something that required revisiting again and again, especially considering how hard a life the two boys who were not abducted have had. Re-dredging up that story doesn’t save any more children from being abducted; it just creates false panic about the normal fragility of life.

tom

I agree with Keith

While Jacob’s unsolved case is of interest/concern. This latest round has been manufactured by the media who have nothing, not even speculation, yet consume expensive bandwidth reporting that they have nothing to report.

Mark Anderson

Personally, Jacob is an icon; he and I were the same age when he was abducted and the memory of his abduction has haunted me to this day.

Kathryn

My children were ages 6 and 8 when it happened. I remember the beautiful weather that weekend, and walking with my kids to a convenience store in the Twin Cities area. The story felt very personal to me. I guess part of the reason it has been compelling is because of the way it happened. The masked man seemed to appear from nowhere, and vanish into nowhere as well. Police were on the scene rather rapidly as I recall, but there was nothing to be found. I, as well as many others, initially assumed it would be solved quickly. And it never was. It was every parent’s worst nightmare. It was the first time, I believe, that the parents had allowed the boys to go on their own, at least at night. It wouldn’t have been any easier if it had been the tenth time or the twentieth time, but there’s something about letting your child do something for the first time, and the unimaginable happens. I remember speculating about the abductor. Had he seen the boys at the convenience store and hatched the crime then? Had he just happened to be passing by on the road that night, a stranger from somewhere else? No one knew. My heart just went out to the parents, and I never stopped hoping that Jacob would be found. I guess that is why the recent activity on the case is so gripping.

Gerald Myking

A lot of people my age grew up in smaller communities. The freedom we injoyed like riding a bike to the local store was no more. There was another story about this same time, the Sarah Reardon case that also got our attention. In rural Minnesota this was an epidemic. The key figure in the Wetterling case was Patti, she refused to let it be just another story on page four. Granted the modern media swoops up on stories like this but there is also a concerned audience waiting for closure.

Patty Murphy

I spent my childhood playing outside with neighbors and only going home for dinner. Jacob’s abduction changed that. My children grew up under my supervision. I drove them to their activities and a parent was always present. The freedom for children to explore was lost.

Shauna Flatt

If they can find Dugard why can’t Jacob come back… We all want him to come home. Or to be put to rest.

Eric

Because he could have been me. I almost was him if it weren’t for my knife when a stranger approached me while fishing alone. He approached me ignoring my friendly greeting. I pulled out my knife to cut my “tangled” fishing line. He quickly left.

erin from mn

There are a few reasons I think that this case has captured/stayed in the public’s imagination for years. The first is the mysterious nature of the crime, even for a stranger abduction, followed by almost no leads at all. The second was the location and family profile –a white middle-class kid from a small town in the Midwest. Finally, and what I think should be the most obvious, is the Wetterlings’ level of organization and motivation to get the case national attention in the weeks, months and years after the case. The couple was educated and savvy with the media and thus able to advocate for their child. Patty also would not let people forget, because she ended up managing an organization devoted to missing kids — which resulted in actual national and state legislation/law changes.

erin from mn

I find people’s tendency to blame “tv” and “the media” for this possibly excessive coverage amusing. The police force has about 13 squad cars there and is removing tons of evidence –how could the media NOT cover that? And then the police won’t say much — it’s intriguing whether you care about the case or not.

Jon

Personally I feel that they will find nothing significant on this search, it looks like a show, IMO it is a just PR. I believe Jacob has long since been killed 21(?) years ago. My guess is that the criminal is in the area. Keith’s comment on the MEDIA is absolutely correct! The MSM MEDIA has become a sad pathetic failure. In comparison, Public MEDIA NPR, BBC, is not quite as incompetent as the American MSM.

Linda

When I was growing up, I had to be reminded/convinced many times “don’t be so scared, there is no such thing as the boogy man.” That was long before Jacob Wetterling was abducted.

I now have an 11 yr. old, and, unfortunately, I have had to remind/convince him that “yes, the boogy man is real.” And he/she doesn’t necessarily look scarey – could look like any “normal’ person, even someone he is familiar with. I’ve had to explain to my son how to escape a car trunk, to run away if someone even approaches him, and if he is threatened with death if he runs, run anyway because the odds are better than not running. He is only allowed to go within a couple of blocks of our home unless he is with someone, and even that worries me. I want him to be able to just be a kid, but I also want him to be safe.

As for the media reporting, I welcome the updates – there WAS something going on in the investigation last week (what if something important IS found and it wasn’t reported on?) Just turn off your radio, read something else or whatever if you don’t want to hear this particular story. Also, yes, there are many missing children. I don’t believe that reporting on one of them takes away from the others, but opens the opportunity to think about all missing children and what can be done to find them, and to prevent this from happening in the first place.

Nicole

We are all still interested because this was such an unusual case. A child was kidnapped in the middle of nowhere and no trace of him was ever seen again. Everyone is hoping that the Wetterling family will get answers one way or another.

Stephie

To Jon: 7/3/2010 11:05 AM. Are you saying there is absolutely nothing to the search and they should give up completely? You do not think they will find anything at all? Wouldn’t you want to find the jerk that did this despicable crime? Stephie

Stephie

To Matt: 7/2/2010 1:03 PM. You must be single with no kids or live on another planet! Why do you say it is fascinating? It is not fascinating if there are some possible witnesses and others might not have that luxury! Will just undo all the laws and other things that have been put in place over the last few years. Good Boy! Stephie.

Stephie

Does anyone have any idea on what happened to the other articles taken away from the scene from the Rassier Farm? Where they not supposed to be checked for DNA?